The UFO 50 Diaries: Caramel Caramel

Cookie Bicker

One of the things that’s particularly brilliant about the games of UFO 50 is that they take a familiar concept, or even lift from a classic 8-16 bit game entirely, but then do something revoltingly clever with those core mechanics to make it feel like a completely different experience altogether.

I’ve not played a lot of side scrolling shooters, but I am largely familiar with the core loop of shooting, dodging projectiles and trying to get to the boss in one piece. I never thought taking photos of my foes would factor into it.

Caramel Caramel is a game that is almost wholly defined by this single mechanic, a camera that freezes your foes in place, in turn giving it the unique proposition: Sometimes it’s better not to shoot first.

This is one of those experiences where lessons are learned through a baptism of fire. It’s a rough fight at first. The level geometry is tricky to navigate safely, the enemy placement seems extremely at odds with the mandatorily horizontal nature of your means of attack, you die in two hits and seemingly have no checkpoints to return to, no lives to keep your momentum up.

But all of this is to inform the player about this secondary mechanic, the camera, and how it can be used to mitigate practically every danger you face on your sweet treat odyssey.

No lives to begin with? Frozen enemies give double points, so use that camera to rack up that score to win a tasty 1-up!

Struggling with the enemies themselves? Use the camera to freeze them in place and take pot shots at them in relative safety!

Unable to securely navigate the hazards of the level? Use the camera to freeze moving parts to allow you to glide by gracefully!

It’s so simple in design and so sophisticated in execution, but the benefits of the camera only come from the ability to actually use it. This function is a renewable resource, slowly filling with time, but requiring gems for a more rapid recharge.

Gems come from defeating enemies, but they lie docile in the world itself until you take your finger off the trigger, at which point they rush to you like an estranged lover.

It's this specific piece of design that makes me take stock of everything else the game is putting out there. One of the side functions of the camera’s freeze is that certain elements in the world will become unstuck, or change their nature.

Ceiling mounted turrets will tumble to the ground, often taking out things below them in the process. Specific enemy types who normally fire out projectiles upon death will not do that if killed while frozen.

In many cases, shooting first makes your life more difficult.

It's hard to become unstuck from that mindset though. This is a difficult game made worse by how punitive its fail state is. Panic is sure to set in.

But this is UFO 50’s bread and butter, making its players understand that they have to move past that animalistic fight or flight behaviour and engage with what these games actually are: elaborate rhythm puzzles.

Unfortunately Caramel Caramel is too hard for me, and the allure of the next game in the collection is too much for me to pass up. I feel happy in what I’ve gained from my time with the game, perhaps once the diaries have been fully written, this will be one to return to and properly obsess over.

Until then, keep it sweet, my friend!